N E \V P U B L I C A T I O N . 73 



,; urn being the product of one such homogeneous power, ure rather 

 the resultants of the action of a multitude of natural forces. 

 Gravity, cohesion, elasticity, the agency of the imponderables, 

 anil all. other powers which operate both on masses and atoms, are 

 called into action, and hence it is that the very evolution of a liv- 

 ing form depends on the condition that all these various agents 

 conspire. There is no mystery in animated beings which time 

 will not at last reveal. It is astonishing that in our days the an- 

 cient system which excludes all connection with natural philoso- 

 phy and chemistry, and depends on the fictitious aid of a visionary 

 force, should continue to exist ; a system which, at the outset, 

 ought to have been broken down by the most common considera- 

 tions, such as those connected with the mechanical principles in- 

 volved in the bony skeleton, the optical principles in the construc- 

 tion of the eye, or the hydraulic action of the valves of the heart." 

 vSuch, then, is the view of Prof. Draper of the vital force ; 

 which, though we are not yet ready to subscribe to, we are aware 

 that the tendency of the in-coming philosophy is to support them. 

 We, perhaps, are not informed of the whole argument which dis- 

 prove on the one hand the existence of a vital force, and on the 

 other demonstrates that what has been attributed to it belongs 

 wholly to physical forces, as gravity, cohesion, elasticity and the 

 imponderabl^. , We see not why we may not subscribe to the doc- 

 trine that the evolution of a living being has some dependence 

 upon those agents or upon the joint action which they conspire to 

 produce, and yet consistently maintain the separate existence of a 

 homogeneous vital principle. The evolution of a complex or even 

 sunple structure may depend on physical agents, that is, without 

 those agents the evolution could not proceed. The seed of a plant, 

 for example, contains a vital principle according to most physiolo- 

 gists ; still, this principle will remain at rest, will not of itself 

 evolve a fabric or organic body, in the absence of heat and moist- 

 ure ; and though the evolution is thus dependent, it by no means 

 militates or overturns the doctrine that prior to evolvement that 

 principle had an existence in the germ or seed. So the green scum 

 upon stagnant water which appears to be evolved by the agency of 

 light and heat ; the living atoms which dance upon the Avater, the 

 monad which floats there and teems in every dead pool, living 

 atoms generated in death, are no more the products of sunlio-ht 



VOL. T. NO. 1 . K 



